Our World After the War – Sunday, September 05, 1943
For sometime now, perhaps prematurely, perhaps not, a favorite topic of speculation has been concerning conditions “after the war.” Often such speculation confines itself entirely to the realm of material comforts and conveniences, and the more imaginative and extravagant speculators envision for us, in word and picture, the immediate birth of a streamlined world with ready-made luxury and chromium trimmings for all. If such things are possible, we have no quarrel with them.
To contemplate progress is a glorious thing, and we’ll add our wish for the realization of such a day to all the others. But perhaps there has been too much emphasis on what we’re going to get and not enough on what we have to give; too much emphasis on what we want and not enough on what goes into the making of such things—too much emphasis on a material utopia and not enough on moral and spiritual values. Nor does history give us reason to suppose that luxury is the immediate aftermath of any war. And furthermore, material luxuries, desirable as they are, do not assure peace, or happiness, or soundness, or stability, or mental or social or economic or spiritual well being.
We hope that everyone will have such things. We cherish the belief that they can be had—but that such a day will automatically come to all men after the war will no more be true than it was before the war, and we had just as well make up our minds to a realization of this fact now, and save disappointment later. It is the right and duty of men in this world to work for what they get, whether they work with hands or brains or both, and neither material goods nor the various freedoms, nor the one great freedom—the free agency of man—will come as manna from the heavens unless we earn them, and respect every man in his place and protect every man in his rights.
As individuals, as a people, and as a world we haven’t come to the point where we can order without asking the price, where we can get without giving, where we can achieve without effort, where we can build stability and integrity without self-sacrifice and without observing the old-fashioned virtues. Nor have we come to the point where we can accumulate wealth without practicing thrift. Before, during, and after the war, the laws of economics have been, are, and will still be operative; mental and moral and spiritual factors will still have greater effect on the happiness of men than material factors, and the realities of life will still have to be faced. War doesn’t change fundamentals—and neither does the peace that follows war.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Sept. 5, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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September 05, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,733